Running With Scissors_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [29]
But these paled in comparison to the real problem: I was surrounded by normal American kids. Hundreds of them, teeming through the halls like the roaches in the Finches’ kitchen. Except I didn’t mind those nearly as much.
I had nothing in common with these kids. They had moms that nibbled matchstick-thin slices of carrot. And I had a mom that ate matchsticks. They went to bed at ten o’clock and I was discovering that life could go on well past three in the morning.
The more time I spent at the Finches’, the more I realized what a waste of my life this school crap was. It was nothing but a holding tank for kids without bigger plans or ideas. Even Natalie said if she had to go to public school instead of private school, she just wouldn’t go.
The Finches were showing me that you could make your own rules. That your life was your own and no adult should be allowed to shape it for you.
So I would go to school for a day. Sometimes two days in a row. The other twenty-eight days I would do my own thing, which basically meant write in my journal, see movies and read Stephen King novels. I was careful not to be absent for thirty days in a row because this would cause the school board to issue a “core evaluation” which could result, I feared, in reform school.
The trick was to show up for homeroom. And then leave. This created confusion within the school’s records. Allowing me to slip through the cracks. And the fact that I had absolutely no friends, knew not one person’s name, made my invisibility even easier.
One afternoon I came home early from school. I made my appearance to be counted at homeroom and then I casually walked out of The Factory. It was a beautiful day and I had seven dollars. I was thinking I could go to the Amherst Cinema and see the German film that was playing there. So I decided to stop by Dickinson Street to get another five dollars from my mother.
And when I opened the front door, there was Fern with her face buried between my mother’s legs.
My mother was sprawled back on the sofa with her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Fern’s head was moving from side to side like a dog gnawing on a rawhide bone. They were both naked; my mother’s blue nightgown draped over the arm of the sofa; Fern’s blouse and skirt in a heap on the floor.
My mother didn’t notice me at first, but Fern opened her eyes and turned her head toward the doorway, keeping her mouth on my mother. She looked right at me and for just a split second, I saw real terror.
Grossed out and disturbed on a deep level, I turned to leave. As I walked out the door I heard Fern howling like an animal, screaming from somewhere down inside her chest.
My mother was shrieking, “Fern, Fern, it’s okay.”
I went outside onto the porch and just stood there. I felt like, ick. But also like laughing. The street was quiet; twostory homes, trimmed hedges, driveways, a cat. The things people do behind closed doors. Looking at the yellow house with its green shutters and the brown Dodge Aspen in the driveway, you’d just never imagine it.
It seemed like only a few seconds passed before I heard the door open, felt hands on my shoulders turning me around. Fern was standing there, dressed but untucked, her hair dented. She was crying, her cheeks all shiny, and she was pulling me toward her, trying to hug me, kissing my cheek, my forehead, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
I tried to pull away. I didn’t want her mouth on me.
The next thing I knew, Fern was running down the steps, then cutting across the lawn toward her car, her head bowed down in shame like she was ducking rain, her handbag clutched against her breasts.
I thought of her dry-cleaned son, Daniel. I thought of him passing me a basket of rolls at dinner. “My mom’s rolls